I haven't "ripped" on it. I just don't see the point of throwing $200 at it just to get the one and only feature that would be useful to me, gamma correction.

Can we be fair and say that for those of us who have 64 bit - it is certainly an option worth looking at - others maybe if they can fit it in their workflow?

PP may have been bagged here but I have seen other threads degenerate into 64 bit vs 42 bit arguments as well as XP 64 bit vs Vista 64 so all in all people have been well behaved here...

I went to poserpro.net  and either the matrix is not fleshed out or Collada transfer is barely better than just importing .obj

[http://poserpro.net/New_Index_9000.html

](http://poserpro.net/New_Index_9000.htmland)
For Modo it says that it bakes morphs, not that it transfers the morphs. So, good that a morphed Poser figure goes across with its deformations, bad that the morph target themselves do not go over, as Modo does have morph-based animation (not translation of rig).

The matrix does not say anything about animations.

Think I'll go to the modo forums and see what I can discover there.

::::: Opera :::::

For those asking to see the Poser Pro Figures

Wireframe

Face

Male

Male Wireframe

Male face

I guess you could sculpt clothing directly onto these models, suitable for all your archivis needs. Somehow, though, I suspect the archivis types wouldn't waste any time fussing with clothing morphs when appropriately dressed, low-res, prefab figures can be purchased elsewhere. I'm not sure who these base figures would be useful for. Games? XSI already has a human primitive. I'm not sure about 3ds and the others...

You only need to read all the other PP threads to know the most vocal just waiting for a PP thread so they can push thier cart, ring thier bell and call out, " Bring out your dead." 

The base is only $150, not $200 as in the full package, for now. The full package gives 10 render nodes instead of 3 and the extra export. So the base would be fine for most users.

The edgelooping looks good on the male head.

Quote - 5/4/08

Male face

Not bad - has potential for morphing. Wouldn't want to use it in a game engine, but it does look useful for other applications.

/P

Anyone have WinXP64 and run Poser Pro. I have this set up on a 64 bit system. It runs great, no problems. Runs a lot faster AND most of my textures don't compess all to hell to get the scene to render anymore.

One thing I noticed is in the process manager, winxp64 still shows poserpro with the *32 extension on it. So does xp64 think poser pro is a 64 bit app?

I'm using XP64. I thought it was only the render that takes advantage of the 64 bit.

When I render in poser pros, not using ffrender it still does better and renders larger scenes than poser 7.

Quote - I guess you could sculpt clothing directly onto these models, suitable for all your archivis needs. Somehow, though, I suspect the archivis types wouldn't waste any time fussing with clothing morphs when appropriately dressed, low-res, prefab figures can be purchased elsewhere.

Exactly!  No client cares about 'original looking' people in an arch visualization enough to want to pay you for the time and effort needed to make them.  Couple of hundred bucks at places like evermotion or archvision will buy you a pack of 100+ figures made and optimized specifically for that use. Some of them even come with animation paths. All ready for import.
There's no way one can make them in Poser Pro at 2 dollars per figure. You have to be able to make one a minute to make it worth your time.

Plus, for arch viz, where an imahe of a person id only 200-300 pixels high (smaller then in most video games) 15,000 polygons is a major overkill.

Unless you're doing animated closeup or a drive drive-by's, static panels with an image mapped onto it does the job in most cases.

Looks like Poser Pro is having more success with Poser 7 users wanting more abilities, then with people their advertizements would make you think is their intended audience. If the result they were hoping war was wider user base for Poser, I'm not seeing it happen yet.

That may end up having a result of hurting P8 sales.

poser 7 only supports HDRI diffuse. no specular. was this changed?

Quote - One thing I noticed is in the process manager, winxp64 still shows poserpro with the *32 extension on it. So does xp64 think poser pro is a 64 bit app?

PoserPro is a 32bit app but it has two Firefly render engines: one 32bit and one 64 bit. If you want to use the 64bit Firefly renderer you need to Render to background. You can access this in the Render settings dialog window under send Render to or in the little drop down menue on the document window Render to background.

Quote - Same few non-owners of PP still ripping it as in every PP thread here. Not counting BH, I can see and agree with some of his points but to judge the whole apps future or lack of over a couple of figures is a bit silly. Also as pointed out a few times, all the content is there if you want to DL it.

It is a great update for P6 users, $150 is nothing for it. I think P6 users would be a bit foolish not to take advantage of the sale. For P7 users not so much but still a good upgrade for $150. Very stable right out of the box. It all depends on you.

I can't use P7 now after using PP. PP is just smoother to work with, faster in many things, bit better renders. I like being able to do something else when it is rendering and I like the fact that I have not had one crash since I bought it. I can't do more than 4or 5 renders in P7 before that friggin desktop crash.

I'm sorry, but PP has been a pleasure to use. I'm sure I'll even find a use for those figures. It works great with my Vue6I and my main app these days, Modo302. It has been worth the upgrade for me.

We agree.  Most of the anti-PP sentiments that I've seen so far have been coming from those who don't have it.  Not in every case, of course -- but for the most part.  And even that's anecdotal.......as much of the stuff which is typically found in the forums is anecdotal (not to mention the set-in-stone-because-it-is-a-fact opinions which are formed via the agency of reading the anecdotal opinions of others over never-used-by-them software).

By no means am I ready to testify to Poser Pro in a serious way yet, but unless if I am very unpleasantly surprised: I think that I'm gonna like it...........whether or not it'll hold any appeal for a $7000-app owner/user is another matter.  I suppose that the closest to that kind of moneyed-app that I have would be AutoCAD.  And I don't use AutoCAD for Poser-related work.  Although I have (in the distant past) prepared a Poser figure or two for background use in an AutoCAD industrial plant model.

Whether or not Poser Pro is worth $150-$200 to anyone else is entirely their decision.  And I don't know how much reading in the forums will help them to make that decision.  I'd say that it's a very open question..........the decision-making part, that is.

Quote - And even that's anecdotal.......as much of the stuff which is typically found in the forums is anecdotal (not to mention the set-in-stone-because-it-is-a-fact opinions which are formed via the agency of reading the anecdotal opinions of others over never-used-by-them software).

What exactly is your point there?  The non-critical stuff is anecdotal too.  Just because somebody coughed up a couple of hundred bucks for somethingh doesn't exempt them from the category "anecdotal".  Every piece of data in this thread is anecdotal.  :blink:

I tried the plugin for 3DS Max 2008. Not very stable, if you click on a wrong item during the import, you're hosed.
A good thing I didn't buy PPro for its Max/Maya/C4D plugins. I wanted it for its full 64 bit renderer, queue manager and render farm abilities.
Maybe I should have stuck to Poser Pro Base, although I have more than 3 64 bit machines that are capable of participating in the farm. And I sure see some use for Collada import/export.

The DAZ|Studio route - tried it and it doesn't work for me. DAZ|Studio does not support dynamic cloth. I'll have to find out how functional the Poser Collada import/export really is, it SHOULD be far more functional than the simple static export that the beta plugin for Poser 7 delivers.

I'm moderately happy with my purchase. 

And before anyone tells me to adjust my monitor:: I've got a new Eizo monitor, perfectly calibrated.

on the 64 bit/32 bit issue:
most professional 3D apps have already had 64 bit support, multithreading support, openGL support, etc for a long time. 
kindof funny that these types of things are always listed as huge new 'features' on Poser boxes. like Poser5's: 'now with an amazing new OpenGL workspace' - 10 years after it has pretty much been a standard on 3D apps. lets forget the fact that the OpenGL workspace didnt even work properly till now with poserPro apparently. from where i sit, these arent new 'features' worthy of a new version number, but rather something owed to purchasers of software as a x.1, x.2, x.3 etc service release.

its not like 64 bit computing came out of nowhere -- its been around for many years now and the clear focus in computing is moving towards 64bit support and larger amounts of memory. it is a company's obligation to provide support for current technology, not some 'favor' they are doing us or some amazing new bullet point on a box.

With regard to the lighting in final (not that anything is ever really, really final!) renders I read on PoserPro.net that because of changes in how the renderer interprets things you might need to fiddle a bit more with the lighting to get the results you're looking for.

The PoserPro.net site is something that should have happened to Poser many moons ago, IMHO.  It's a good spot to refer to and to get hints from on the new features of PoserPro.

It would be even nicer if it evolved into a wiki over time so that it could become a place to go for reference and a place for ideas to be posted.

ttfn

John

(BTW, my renders came out dark the first couple of times till I rejigged the lights.  Still not perfect but better than P7 in the same scenes.  Then again, lighting is definitely a weak point for me. )

"Not counting BH, I can see and agree with some of his points but to judge the whole apps future or lack of over a couple of figures is a bit silly."

of course its not going to singlehandedly be poser's 'downfall', but it will contribute to it being viewed in an even more unfavorable light. poser should be focusing on getting people to take it more seriously, and thats not going to happen through releasing poser PRO with figures that look like someones first modeling attempt.

there is nothing that SM or any of the previous poser owners can/could have done to immediately elevate poser to a higher standard: it has to be done in small steps, moving in the right direction. updating poser with a modular, modern interface could be one of those steps (for example). the figures were a big step backwards and will just result in even more ridicule of poser. 

im not ripping on poser - quite the opposite. i want poser to gain a little respect in the 3D world. i am criticizing the decisions that the companies at the helm of poser habitually make -- they often seem to be more concerned with quick profits rather than the continued success and reputation of the program.  it doesnt help that until now most companies that had control of poser held onto it only long enough to wring as much profit as they could out of one version, then quickly dump it with little concern for the long-term future of the program.

regardless of how some of you may defend the new figures, it is inarguable that if the people responsible for their creation would have simply spent a little bit more time on them they could have looked far more professional and usable. sadly this same attitude is mirrored in many marketplace products as well.

Quote -
What exactly is your point there?  The non-critical stuff is anecdotal too.  Just because somebody coughed up a couple of hundred bucks for somethingh doesn't exempt them from the category "anecdotal".  Every piece of data in this thread is anecdotal.  :blink:

Exactly.

Something else to bring up - you don't have to own a copy to know the shortcomings of the low-poly meshes (the wireframes are posted right there fer hells' sake!) , potential application, etc etc. You don't need to spend $200 (if you're lucky, otherwise it costs $500) to see the limitations of the import/export cabailities, as posted by those who own it.

Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

the biggest Export gripe I have is no PointOven or  .mdd export of baked animation including dynamic cloth.  That would be a fantastic pipe to Modo.

All you'd need is the point cloud (.obj) for each frame. In Modo you attach or paint your textures then tweak lights and render. That could be a sweet workflow.

::::: Opera :::::

Quote - (BTW, my renders came out dark the first couple of times till I rejigged the lights.  Still not perfect but better than P7 in the same scenes.  Then again, lighting is definitely a weak point for me. )

I think you are right about the lights. Looks like I have to do some adjustments then.

Quote - Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

I'm not sure what the problem is with the UI?

I'd think there is a market niche for a smooth Poser to Modo plugin. Modo may not have CA for quite a while, so you can't animate in Modo.

From the Modo 301 feature list:

File I/O SDK: New API for creating plug-ins in C or C++ that import or export modo scene and image data to and from other formats. 

So any C++ people can you make this? You don't have to move bones or morphs, just mesh. You'd sell some, for sure.

::::: Opera :::::

Note: I am opening a new topic for this

Quote - > Quote - Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

I'm not sure what the problem is with the UI?

it doesnt scale, it wastes space like mad (what other professional application actually has over 50% of the workspace taken up by cutesy bitmaps?) and is very slow and clunky. streamlined and modular would be good, moddable would be even better and would open up even more marketing/freestuff opportunities for those so inclined.

the poser interface was fine in the 90s, but you generally expect more from an app in 2008.

Ok ... but I like it the way it is and it never bothered me. If they ever decide to change it I hope they will still include it and maybe let you select the UI you want to use under preferences.

Quote - > Quote - Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

I'm not sure what the problem is with the UI?

It's slow (slower still when a poly-heavy scene is loaded), it doesn't have the flexibility and logic of most other suites, and it tends to get in the way at times. Also, you're stuck with having to(literally) shove things out of the way just to get some real desktop real-estate for the viewports... most pros approaching it after having worked full-time with 3DS Max, Maya, etc. are likely to not have much tolerance for such a sudden and jarring shift in user interfaces.

Once you're used to it, sure... you're, well, used to it

Just MHO, but I doubt I'm alone in this...

/P

Quote - > Quote - And even that's anecdotal.......as much of the stuff which is typically found in the forums is anecdotal (not to mention the set-in-stone-because-it-is-a-fact opinions which are formed via the agency of reading the anecdotal opinions of others over never-used-by-them software).

What exactly is your point there?  The non-critical stuff is anecdotal too.  Just because somebody coughed up a couple of hundred bucks for somethingh doesn't exempt them from the category "anecdotal".  Every piece of data in this thread is anecdotal.  :blink:

Please note that I indicated that "much of the stuff which is typically found in the forums is anecdotal", without specifying whether the nature of the anecdotal evidence was positive or negative.

However: I'd say that experienced anecdotal tends to trump "outside looking in" anecdotal.    That is to say: people who've actually tasted something have a better idea about whether or not it tastes good or bad than do those who've only talked about it........even though the "anecdotal" label technically applies in both cases.  Whether or not they've spent $200 to find out is unrelated to the point.

LOL. I did say, "Not counting BH."

I have never deffended poser figures, in fact I have been quite the mouth at expressing my opinion on poser figures of the past few versions. From CL up, they have droped the ball on figure developement.

Figures are not the problem. It's the lack of community interaction that will be and has been, posers downfall. As pointed out in an earlier post. Each new company spends less time finding out what users really want. Another problem is in PR. They hire some numb nut that thinks they know everything and gets quite hostile and childish when a problem arises and find out that they are not gods guift to the poser community. Not including RC in that. That was one of those rare right choices.

The UI is a bit out dated but you can customize it some and a choice of UI in the preference would be ideal and give you the same options as up to date apps have.. I don't like the modular thing. DS has shown how much an app can nickle and dime you to death. MY god is that thing expensive now. Unless you mean modular as in docking, then that's a good thing.

I'm not going to say it's the greatest poser version yet. But it is an improvement in many things and It has been worth the upgrade/ sidegrade price to me.

Now off to find operaguy's modo thread and give my support to that idea.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

I'm not sure what the problem is with the UI?

It's slow (slower still when a poly-heavy scene is loaded), it doesn't have the flexibility and logic of most other suites, and it tends to get in the way at times. Also, you're stuck with having to(literally) shove things out of the way just to get some real desktop real-estate for the viewports... most pros approaching it after having worked full-time with 3DS Max, Maya, etc. are likely to not have much tolerance for such a sudden and jarring shift in user interfaces.

Once you're used to it, sure... you're, well, used to it

Just MHO, but I doubt I'm alone in this...

/P

It's slow? You're sure it's not your system? I have no problems, responds well and is fast. And regarding stuff that gets into the way ... doh, get yourself a nice huge widescreen monitor and everything is fine ;-)

Anyways, I only buy my proggies for fun and as long as I get along with everything I'm fine - and that is the only thing that is important for me,  not what pros feel or think.

But I guess some people aren't happy unless they have a gazillion of blinkenlights and knobs and switches on their screen and have to learn dozends of cryptic keyboard  shortcuts  just to navigate through some folders. :rolleyes:

And yeah, those LoRez Poser figures suck.
But show me a single (unmodified) Poser figure that doesn't.

No professional 3d artist will touch them with a ten foot pole if they can buy ready to go ArchViz figures from Evermotion or Dosch or AXYZ.
And professional Studios model their own figures to avoid ANY problem with copyright, period.

But they might still be some use for "advanced hobbyist" animators or as background fillers.
Still it wouldn't have hurt to invest a bit more time in them to make them look a wee bit more human.

BTW, right now I don't have much use for PoserPro, but my next machine will be 64bit, and then I'll definitely "sidegrade" to it.

I wish they would have improved the MorphBrush, but I already developed a nice workflow to use it across seams for FBM morphs, so I can wait till this problem will be (hopefully) solved in Poser 8.
Besides, ZB3 can't smooth across groups of an unwelded Poser mesh either, so it's not such a big deal to me.

I'm only posting here now just so my Dragon Hatchlings will grow up. :tt2:

i think some people who post about poser's interface being good just dont have a frame of reference to what a modern, slick interface really is and how much of a difference it can make in your workflow. preferably something scalable and moddable so people can create custom interface mods to suit a wide range of needs and tastes.
theres also a lot of room for improvement in the dial system.

by modular i meant that you could create your own snapping toolbars, panels and nested subpanels and customize what YOU want to have displayed instead of having this huge mess that you kindof have to push around your viewport.

Quote -
It's slow? You're sure it's not your system?

I doubt it. Not to bring in any comparisons, but D|S and Carrara Pro both have vastly faster UI response times with the exact same scene loaded, same angles, same lighting, etc etc etc (funny thing is, Carrara still suffers somewhat from what I see as the same deficiencies of UI design).

Quote - Anyways, I only buy my proggies for fun and as long as I get along with everything I'm fine - and that is the only thing that is important for me

...and that's perfectly cool. Home users, it does appeal to. But when you start claiming that your app is pro-level, then put out something that decidedly lacks many of the things that would mark it as a professional app? That's when things get sour.

--

Quote -
This is my viewport in Poser 7.
Dunno, but it looks pretty roomy to me

That's nice for a render result window... now where's the Pose Room?  ;)

Quote - And yeah, those LoRez Poser figures suck.
But show me a single (unmodified) Poser figure that doesn't.

Wasn't the point. The point was (as Connie mentioned, and you conceded) that it would be too much work to make the things usable for the purposes they're allegedly best suited for.

Try shoving a couple of quad/tri-mixed 15k-poly figures into a game engine - and put some clothes on 'em before you do. Very few current game engines will actually render something that heavy in realtime without puking all over itself, and I'd like to see one that would actually do that and swallow a mixed-Gon mesh all at the same time. ;)

Quote - But they might still be some use for "advanced hobbyist" animators or as background fillers.

But they didn't call it "Poser Advanced Hobbyist Edition"... ;)

/P

Quote - i think some people who post about poser's interface being good just dont have a frame of reference to what a modern, slick interface really is and how much of a difference it can make in your workflow. preferably something scalable and moddable so people can create custom interface mods to suit a wide range of needs and tastes.
theres also a lot of room for improvement in the dial system.

by modular i meant that you could create your own snapping toolbars, panels and nested subpanels and customize what YOU want to have displayed instead of having this huge mess that you kindof have to push around your viewport.

I have used 3DMax, Truespace, Zbrush, Bryce, Poser, Carrara and a few others and I Prefer the Poser/Bryce/Carrara UI over that of the Pro modeler UI's because it's much more intutive to me as a hobbiest. To each his own, but I prefer it because I understand it. It's simple and to the point. I'm not a pro though so I'm coming from the amature/hobbiest perspective on this.

Quote - inability to morph across group lines aside, the morph tool is incredibly underrated. so few people use it :(

rather than making face/figure morphs i think that its real advantage is being able to quickly touch up clothing pokethrough, joints, flexing muscles, creating expressions, etc.

making it morph seamlessly across group lines would be amazing... unfortunately we probably wont see that till poser 10 :)

I've gotten pretty good at working around this.  I just use move relative to the surface on both pieces, then switch to move relative to screen and adjust the morphs only at the silhouette to keep them smooth.  Then I might use the smoothing tool at the edges.  It's a little more work, but I am very glad I forced myself to make it useful.

wow interesting points being made in this thread.

I understand Blackhearted's points being made. When a company is dealing with marketing to new users, what one gets "out of the box" does matter. How usable is it out of the box? To a new user being introduced to Poser via Poser Pro, I would say there are additional costs to consider; be one a professional or a hobbiest.

I started using Poser 1 as a hobbiest and purchased each successive version for business in professional applications. My colleagues and I have been using Poser models in medical, industrial, and entertainment promotion and presentations. The lack of quality base models strikes me as a bit odd for that reason. I doubt that adding the word Pro is meant to filter out some users thus curtailing valuable sales. Not all professional users of Poser are modelers by trade.

Aside from the low quality of the base characters,  I am not yet convinced that Poser Pro (even at $200) is worth the upgrade for other reasons. I'm still on XP32 so I'm still looking into Pro/Cons but I'm guessing the next version should feel more complete.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Plus... I have yet to see a Professional app sport a cutesy but clunky UI that I have a near-exact copy of in my own Poser 'non-pro' install.

/P

I'm not sure what the problem is with the UI?

It's slow (slower still when a poly-heavy scene is loaded), it doesn't have the flexibility and logic of most other suites, and it tends to get in the way at times. Also, you're stuck with having to(literally) shove things out of the way just to get some real desktop real-estate for the viewports... most pros approaching it after having worked full-time with 3DS Max, Maya, etc. are likely to not have much tolerance for such a sudden and jarring shift in user interfaces.

Once you're used to it, sure... you're, well, used to it

Just MHO, but I doubt I'm alone in this...

/P

If Poser were a modeler I could see wanting the extra screen space for the traditional tri-view layout and tools.  Maybe allowing the preview window to be fullscreened with the palettes over top would be nice, but I've never found the bitmap based palettes themselves to be too big or resource heavy.  I can see why one might have expected the Pro version to have a more business like UI, though.  I still use Poser because the interface makes it look fun, perhaps more so than it actually is.

"Then I might use the smoothing tool at the edges.  It's a little more work, but I am very glad I forced myself to make it useful."

Yeah, it's possible to carefully do FBM's because the MorphBrush only moves the parent's vertices and not the child's across a seam, but that's not what I meant.

I can take an unwelded Poser mesh, weld it, fully smooth/morph it with the morphbrush across seams, and then "un-weld" it again so that the original morphs will still work.
Took me only a year to find that exact workflow, but I can now morph and smooth already morphed or even scaled figures in P7 or ZB3 without problem.

No need to use the welded objects from the geometry folder or to carefully work along seams any more.

Just checkin' if you were paying attention. :-)

"by modular i meant that you could create your own snapping toolbars, panels and nested subpanels and customize what YOU want to have displayed instead of having this huge mess that you kindof have to push around your viewport."

That is what I thought you meant but was not sure and I agree with that. That is were the UI preference would be a good thing. Carrara, Vue, Modo, well, Modo goes beyond that, but many give you a choice of prefered app UI.

As for calling it pro. why not. Everyone throws that word around. It does not have much meaning anymore. Look what Daz has done with it. Vue uses it but it is not as "Pro" as Infinity or X. I'm guessing, don't know, that it is to split versions up. Just like everyone else does and build on that.

Should SM have advertised these figures as pro, used for gaming and such, probably not. It might have been better to promote them as base figures for user creations.